Senior Research Scientist

Mark Williams is a Senior Research Scientist at IHMC who previously was at the University of Utah, where he was professor and chairman of the Department of Health, Kinesiology, and Recreation. He previously held senior leadership positions in the UK (Head of Life Sciences, Brunel University London) and Australia (Associate Dean for Research, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Sydney).

His research interests focus on the neural and psychological mechanisms underpinning the acquisition and development of expertise. He has published almost 300 journal articles in peer-reviewed outlets in numerous fields including exercise and sports science (e.g., Medicine and Science in Sport and Exercise, Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, Sports Medicine), experimental psychology (e.g., Acta Psychologica, British Journal of Psychology, Experimental Psychology, Visual Cognition, Journal of Experimental Psychology, Psychological Bulletin), neuroscience (Neuroscience Letters, Human Brain Mapping, Neuroimaging, Neuropsychologica) and medicine (The Lancet, British Medical Journal, Medical Education). He has written 18 books, 77 book chapters, 60 professional articles, 113 journal abstracts, and he has delivered almost 200 keynote and invited lectures in over 30 countries. His H index on Google Scholar is 98, with an i10 of 293, and over 42,000 citations.

He is Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Sports Sciences, the Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, and the journal Human Movement Science. He has sat on the editorial boards of the Scandinavian Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, Frontiers of Cognition, and Frontiers in Psychology: Performance Science, and Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology and has acted as a Guest Editor for several special issues of Journal of Sport Sciences, Journal of Motor Behavior, Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, and Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied.

He has mentored 10 Post-Doctoral Research Fellows and supervised over 50 doctoral students. He has acted as a reviewer for more than 50 journals in the exercise and sports sciences, experimental psychology, education and cognitive/behavioral neurosciences and 15 funding agencies in North America, Europe, and Asia. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society (BPS), National Academy of Kinesiology (NAK), British Association of Sport and Exercise Science (BASES), and the European College of Sports Sciences (ECSS). He is a Chartered Psychologist and a Charted Scientist. He has been a Visiting Professor at several prestigious institutions including Florida State University, Loughborough University, University of Florida, University of Calgary, University of British Columbia, University of the Mediterranean, University of Salzburg, and KU Leuven.

He has received more than $8 million in external funding from research councils in Australia (Australian Research Council – ARC) and the UK (Economic and Social Research Council; Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council – BBSRC; British Academy, Royal Society), industry partners, such as Nike and Umbro, and the the Department of Defense in the US, as well as governing bodies of sport (The FA, FIFA, UEFA, UK Sport, USOC) and professional sports teams (Liverpool, Everton, West Ham).